by James Axler
"Come and eat now, outlanders," he said. "I give you my deep sorrow that our ville was so shamed." He turned and pointed to a couple of the youngest-looking lads at the table to the right. "Remove what was Jimmy, and we will inter him, properly, tomorrow. After the dawning."
"Seem to have lost some of my appetite," Krysty whispered to Ryan.
DESPITE THE HORRIFIC outburst of savage violence, the evening meal carried on almost as though nothing
had happened. The body was dragged out, leaving a dark, glistening smear behind it.
Immediately the doors were closed again, and Jehu clapped his hands to order the food brought in. It was carried by several of the younger women, on platters of turned beechwood and hand-thrown pottery.
Large bowls were placed at intervals along all the tables, and everyone helped themselves to the steaming mix of vegetables. Ryan noticed that the cutlery on the top table was matching steel, but the rest of the people were making do with a makeshift collection of plastic and cheap metal.
Ryan was seated on the right hand of Jehu, with Krysty on the other side of the ville's leader. Doc sat next to Ryan, with an empty chair yawning conspicuously at his right. The rest of them were spaced out along the high table, with Dorothy sitting between Dean and Michael, engaging them both in a whispered, intense conversation.
The food was excellent, with a richness and diversity that was more than eno ugh to dispel even Doc's proclaimed reservations about vegetarian eating.
There was delicious creamed carrots, mixed in with nutty, macerated celeriac; buttered leeks, with slices of lightly fried turnips decorating the top of the dish; potatoes in all shapes, sizes and varieties, roasted in their skins, mashed up with tiny shreds of cooked red cabbage; curling heads of kale, with deep-fried wafers of potato piled around them; baked potatoes, slashed open, with melting knobs of trade butter and sea salt.
There were at least a dozen kinds of bread. Some of it with little pieces of apple and pear baked into it; soda bread, with a dozen dishes of jelly; rolls so fresh they almost burned the tongue and melted in the mouth.
There was elderflower wine to drink, with apple juice and cold, pure water.
As soon as some of the dishes began to empty, the young women brought in fresh bowls, until the tables seemed to groan under the weight.
To follow the meal there were custards and a range of fresh fruits, including delicious golden melons.
Ryan hadn't realized just how hungry he'd been and he had to ease his belt out a couple of notches. There was little conversation, with everyone concentrating on the meal, though the one-eyed man was concerned at the way that his son and Michael seemed to be hanging on every word from the blond-haired Dorothy.
Only when the first overwhelming pangs had been satisfied did Ryan embark on a cautious talk with Jehu.
"Real ace-on-the-line meal," he said. "Moses responsible for that, as well?"
Jehu nodded, sipping at a glass of water.' *Moses is responsible for everything within the ville of Quind-ley," he replied. "For every thing and for every person. We are what we are, because of Moses."
"Will we meet him?"
"No." Jehu hesitated. "Unless he chooses to let you speak with him."
Krysty had been listening to the conversation. "Speak with him, or see him?"
"Oh, only speak. Nobody sees Moses. I thought you had been told that."
Ryan glanced around the room, noticing that Doc was still the center of attention, though the young men and women of the ville seemed to be under orders to try not to stare at him-orders that they were finding difficult to obey.
"Jehu?" Ryan said, deciding that it was pointless to ignore the obvious question any longer.
"What is it?"
"Your ville has babies and children?"
"Yes. Of course. Or we would all die out."
"But you have no old people here?"
"Ah... You have observed this?"
"Have to be triple stupe not to. Doesn't seem to be a single man or woman over the age of about thirty or so?"
"Younger," Jehu agreed, cutting himself a slice of one of the honeyed melons.
"Younger?" Krysty repeated. "How much younger?"
"Nobody in Quindley ever lives beyond their twenty-fifth birthing day."
"Twenty-five." Ryan nodded. "Yeah, I can believe that. But what happened to all the older men and women here?"
"They were translated to a different place. So Moses teaches us."
"Dead," Krysty said, the word flat and dull in the air between them.
"Outlanders would say that the oldies have died. We do not always say so."
"Some virus, is it? A sickness?"
Jehu looked puzzled. "A sickness, Krysty?"
It was her turn to look bewildered. "There has to be a reason why there's nobody over the age of twenty-five, Jehu. People don't just die on their twenty-fifth birthday."
"Yes, they do."
Ryan and Krysty sat silent, staring at each other across the front of the ponytailed young man, whose bright blue eyes were gazing out over the crowded room.
Ryan swallowed a mouthful of the light wine. "You telling us what I think you're telling us, Jehu? Nobody old hi the whole ville, because you chill them?"
"Of course we do. Oh, I know what you think. The ways of many outland villes are different. We know that. Moses has explained how there is no wisdom beyond our lands. This is why we don't normally allow strangers in. Unless they... But let that pass. Dorothy said you helped with stickies and with finding the body of Jolyon, brother to Isaac. So, in the ways ordained by Moses, we take you in and feed you. Let you rest before going on your journey."
Doc had finally picked up on what was being said and he sat, a forkful of carrot frozen halfway to his mouth. "Are my old ears betraying me, my dear Ryan?" he whispered. "Or did that slip of a child say they killed everyone once they reached the age of twenty-five?"
Ryan let his held breath whistle softly between his teeth. "No, Doc, you heard right all right."
"Then that explains the hostility to me. I must seem like some Methuselah to them."
"Who was Methuselah, Doc?" Ryan asked.
"Oldest man in the Bible. He was..." Doc waved his hand, holding the fork, the food spilling back onto his plate. "By the Three Kennedys, Ryan, but I think that we should not linger long in this place."
Jehu had stood up and was rapping on the oak table with the hilt of his spoon, waiting until the dining ball fell silent, "Brothers and sisters, the meal is done. And, as we follow the path of Moses, we shall now retire to meditate on the day and to rest. Our guests will retire to their quarters." He rapped the spoon again for emphasis. "They are the guests of Quindley and of Moses. They will not be harmed and will be shown respect. Despite most of them being oldies."
Ryan looked around the room as the young leader made his short speech. He saw every face turned toward the top table, most eyes averted from the wrinkled face of Doc, avoiding J.B., Mildred, Krysty and himself.
But many of them, particularly the younger women, were staring at Dean and at Michael with something that seemed to approach a kind of hunger.
Both of them had been tucking into the excellent meal with every show of enjoyment. But they'd also both been listening intently to whatever it was that Dorothy had been saying to them. And that worried Ryan.
IT WAS A MILD NIGHT, with a sky like black velvet, sprinkled with brilliant stars. Frank and Ray had guided them back to their quarters. Michael and Dean lagged behind, whispering to each other.
Before being shepherded into the divided hut, Ryan and Krysty embraced and kissed, as did J.B. and Mildred. The two young men of Quindley scarcely bothered to conceal their disgust.
"Bad enough having oldies in the ville without triple-sick sexing like this," Frank said.
"You want to be careful, sonny," Mildred snapped. "Or I'll come and kiss you when you aren't looking and you'll get to be old and wrinkled like me. Just like that." She snapped her fingers.
"So watch your little shit mouth."
ONCE THEY WERE ALONE, Ryan sat on his bed and beckoned his eleven-year-old son to him. "Want to have a word with you, Dean."
"What?"
The torches were beginning to smoke and gutter, and someone had placed an ancient brass oil lamp on the central table, which bathed the room in a gentle, golden glow. But it didn't give enough light for Ryan to be able to see properly what was going on in the boy's face.
"Speak to me, Dean."
"What about?"
He wished that Krysty had been there. With her semimutie powers, she was amazingly sensitive to what people said. And, more importantly, to the way in which they said it. She would have heard things in Dean's voice that Ryan could only begin to try to guess at.
"What did Dorothy say to you and Michael during the meal?"
"Nothing much."
"What? She was talking all the way through."
"Why do you want to know, Dad?"
The small vein was beginning to tick in Ryan's temple, the inexorable sign that he was on the verge of losing his temper. Dean was deliberately concealing something from him. He didn't know what and he didn't know why.
"I ask the questions and you answer them. We're in a strange ville. Real double strange. Anything that you've been told could be a help in working out if there's any sort of danger for any of us. All right?"
"Dad, I'm real tired. Dorothy didn't say nothing about stuff like you just said. Nothing like that. Now, is it all right if I go to bed?"
The boy's whole body language was shouting out a stubborn resistance. Ryan had a momentary temptation to slap him senseless, but he struggled and overcame it, knowing it would do no good, except in terms of relieving some of his own feelings.
"Sure," he said finally, ruffling Dean's hair. "Go to bed, son."
Chapter Twenty-Two
"Good day to you." Jehu stood in the open doorway of their quarters, the bright morning sun turning him into a sharp-edged silhouette.
"Hi, there." Ryan and the others had discussed what they'd found out during the evening meal, before they had all retired to their beds.
The fact that Quindley deliberately butchered anyone who passed their twenty-fifth birthday hadn't really come as that much of a surprise. They had all noticed the extreme youth of everyone in the well-ordered ville.
Doc had been most persuasive for their leaving the place at first light.
"Did they explain why they followed this barbarous practice?" he'd asked.
Ryan hadn't known the answer to that. "We never got around to talking about why they did it, Doc. Bad enough that they did it at all."
"They have shown us some courtesy, and the one they call Jehu, aided by young Michael here, most certainly saved my life. But who knows how they might feel tomorrow? I have not encountered such overt hostility since I addressed a meeting of young female students in 1888 and opposed the idea that they should ever be allowed to vote."
"Best not let Mildred hear you admit to that argument, Doc," J.B. warned. "Likely to find you've got your balls nailed to the wall."
Doc had smiled. "Well, the truth is, I was never actually opposed to the idea of universal suffrage. I only did it to annoy my dear Emily and draw attention to myself. And it worked well. She was so delighted to have the chance to persuade a young male chauvi nist to her views that we spent many late hours together while she wooed me over to her side."
It was eventually agreed that they would stay in Quindley for at least another day. Ryan's argument for this was that they had vastly superior firepower to anything the young men and women carried. And they were being very well fed and should take advantage of the chance to catch up on some decent meals and sleep on good, clean beds.
Now it was time for them to go again to the dining room and break their fasts.
"Many of us are already out at work, either in the fields or in the woods around," Jehu said. "There go some of the youngest, to help to gather branches and twigs for the fires. We need a good store against the cold of winter." He brushed back his long hair. "Perhaps you might go and watch them, later."
There was a group of fifteen little children, all wearing pale blue shirts and pants, most of them with the same blond hair. As they walked along the gently swaying causeway, several of them turned to look back at the outlanders. One or two of them made a curious gesture, with their index finger and little finger stuck straight out, aimed at Ryan and the others, while the two middle fingers were kept clenched.
"They point at us with the sign to ward off the maleficent powers of the evil eye," Doc said. "It saddens me to see such perverse and heathen foolishness in what should be an earthly paradise."
Jehu heard him and turned around. "If it were not for the word of Moses, then it would be more than fingers pointing at you."
"That a threat?" Ryan asked.
"Make of it what you will."
"If Doc had been chilled last night, then there wouldn't have been a living soul left hi your fucking dining room! Make of that what you want."
"Is that a threat, outlander?"
Ryan stepped in close, feeling all of the old strength and power surge through his body. It was good to know that his body had purged itself so quickly of what had come so close to being a terminal illness.
"No, Jehu. It isn't just a threat. It's a promise."
THE TENSION EASED over the breakfast.
There were cereals and fruits, eggs, which also came from the ville's trading with other, smaller communities, and wooden platters of breads and conserves.
The hall was almost empty, with everyone already out in the fields. Dorothy came in halfway through the meal and smiled at Dean and Michael. She sat with them at the end of the table. Ryan caught Krysty's eye
and frowned, but there was no point in making any sort of an issue out of it. "When do you want us out of here?" he asked Jehu.
The young man was taken by surprise by the question, spluttering through a mouthful of wholemeal bread. "Stay as long as. ..long as you want. Both your two boys are interested in what we do. Why not give them another day or so to really understand what Quindley is all about?"
Dorothy looked up. "Don't forget that Moses will want to speak to the outlanders, Jehu."
Ryan ignored her. "Don't like coming and taking anything for nothing, Jehu. Sure you wouldn't like us to go and do some hunting for you?"
"Meat is poison. But there are vermin in the woods. If you could cut down on their numbers, then we'd be grateful to you." He smiled. "That would be good."
They all looked up as the doors opened and a man stumbled in. He was more ragged than anyone they'd seen, his clothing dirty, his chin unshaved. He was escorted by two of the women, each of them with a handblaster at the waist. All three sat down at the far end of one of the long tables, ignoring the outlanders.
"Who's that?" J.B. asked.
"He is soon to be selected." Jehu finished his mug of water and wiped his mouth. He stood, obviously not wishing to pursue the conversation further.
But the Armorer didn't want to let it He. "What does 'selected' mean? I've seen prisoners in my time. Thaf s what he is, isn't he, Jehu?"
"No. He can leave if he wishes, on his own terms. But he has known since birthing that he is of the people and belongs to Moses and the people."
Dorothy also stood, an arm resting lightly on Michael's shoulder. "If you stay here with us for another three days, then you'll see for yourself how blood returns to blood here in our ville."
Krysty nodded. "I get it. Poor bastard's got his twenty-fifth birthday coming up. That it?"
The young blond woman nodded. "Yes. That's it. Now-" she rubbed her hands as if she were wiping away a problem " -now, I'm taking Dean and Michael on a tour of the ville. Rest of you oldies can go where you please."
"Watch the wood gatherers," Jehu suggested, "and perhaps cull some of the carrion from the deep forest."
"Sure," Ryan said. "Why not?"
THE FIVE FRIENDS R
ETURNED first to their quarters, to wash and ready themselves for the day. The sun shone brightly, turning Shamplin Lake into a silvered ocean. A gentle breeze whispered from the north, bringing the fresh scent of pine needles. Out across the water a large fish leaped and turned, the light catching the rainbow gleam of its scales.
Krysty was in the men's part of the room, ignoring a scowl from Frank. "It's really beautiful, lover," she said, beckoning Ryan to the view from the window.